Rating: 
Summary: The very best of the best
Review:
Planet of Adventure is a brilliant book. This is not a phrase I use lightly. It well and truley deserves this moniker. I have read thousands of science fiction and fantasy books but only a few scale the heights of Planet of Adventure. I consider it Jack Vances best work. Its one of those books that you will re-read several times in the course of ones life. Its that good. Five stars does not do it justice. It is probably one of the 20 best science fiction books ever written and definitely in the top 100.
It has that power to totally absorb you - the way only great books can.
Rating:
Summary: THE best sci-fi novels I have ever read!
Review: 'Barlowe's Guide To Extraterrestrials' is what turned me onto to these books, and what a discovery they were, too! Vance's four 'Tschai: Planet Of Adventure' novels are top-notch reading entertainment. His penchant for lush description in few words is refreshing, and the story of a human stranded on an alien planet and his subsequent attempts to get back to Earth is as engaging as any. These stories deserve a cinematic treatment! Bravo to Mr. Vance. Do not miss reading this series, I implore you!
Rating:
Summary: High adventure here!
Review: Adam Reith, crew-member of the Earth spaceship Explorator IV, finds himself marooned on a planet known as Tschai after hostile planetary forces destroy both his ship and the rest of the crew. Reith virtually hits the ground running, and the pace never relents for an instant as he strives to find a way to recover the Explorator IV's life-boat and return to Earth in order to bear warning of Tschai's hostile alien inhabitants. In addition to its human inhabitants, Tschai hosts four alien species: the Chasch, the Dirdir, the Wanhk and the Pnume. These races have the human populace virtually enslaved, and Reith finds it just as necessary to help his fellow humans find the strength and determination to throw off their servitude to these interlopers as to find his lost lifeboat. This is a space-opera in the best and highest sense of the word. Once you have visited Tschai, "Planet of Adventure," you will find it very hard to forget! I cannot recommend this highly enough.
Rating:
Summary: Exciting, addictive storyline written in a unique prose styl
Review: After having read this series 4X over an 18 year period, I never fail to find it fascinating and charming. I've long speculated on the plot for a fifth novel to the series, perhaps entitled: Return to Tschai: The Phung which may unravel some of the mysteries of this indiginous race and its connection to the nighthounds. I've toyed with the idea of penning a first chapter and sending it to Mr. Vance just to get him engaged with the concept. I've avidly read almost all of Mr. Vance's science fiction works but have not discovered affordable copies of his mysteries. Let's hope that he has a dozen or so novels left in him before he decides to retire (although I understand he is in his 70s now).
Rating:
Summary: Vance.Humorist/Novelist
Review: As a youth I enjoyed the stories of HP H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith tremendously in their ability of transporting the reader to strange worlds with colorful, prosaic descriptions. A freind recently turned me on to Vance's Planet of Adventure series and once again, in the great traditional style, he succeeds. However my greatest delight was in discovering what a crack-up his side characters are. For instance, in most of Vance's books there are Innkeepers who take great elaborate pains to extract money from travellers in some of the most clever negotiations I've ever read. At times pages are devoted to these Monty Pythonesque transactions! Does Vance hold a beef on Innkeepers or what? Great Books!
Rating:
Summary: Credible aliens, adventure and humor
Review: Besides the known talent of Vance for adventure and for constructing credible societies, this four novels also reach something really difficult in SF: describing credible aliens, not the habitual and ridiculous little green men... and not one, four different types of them! Sense of humor, adventure, critic to our own society (the aliens are not too alien), this book has it all an more. I don't know why Vance is so little recognized in the world of SF (never won a Hugo novel award).
Rating:
Summary: Vance's best sci-fi
Review: Certainly the most enjoyable of Vance's science fiction. Many will disagree with me, but I often find his sci-fi, as opposed to his fantasy, rather thin and even humourless. This is not true of this series, which I have read and re-read over many years. There is a compelling strength to the way Vance tells of the space-wrecked Adam Reith and his adventures upon distant Tschai. The characterisations of Reith's friends and side-kicks, the young steppe boy and the effete Dirdir-man Anacho, are particularly strong. Vance is never convincing in his portrayal of women, most of whom are blessedly (from the reader's point of view) absent apart from the last book, the Pnume, but his ability to portray the alien and the bizarre - especially in a human context - is at its best in the Planet of Adventure series.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding!!!
Review: First, let me state that Jack Vance is my favorite SF author, so maybe I'm biased. That said, I believe this series (and each individual book in it) is superb. The plot involves an Earthman, Adam Reith, who gets stranded on a planet occupied by four advanced alien races. Reith must use every resource of his mind and body to avoid not only capture and death, but to procure a spaceship to take him home. Along the way, he gains allies who come to believe in his quest. As usual, Vance has succeeded in creating a world far removed from our own in both technology and temperment, rich in both complexity and credibility. Reith is the quintessential Vancian hero, relying as much on his mental resources as his muscle; he tends to outwit and outmanuever his opponents as opposed to simply over-powering them, but he has no problem in asserting his phyical prowess when necessary. The action moves along at a breathtaking pace, with memorable characters and events at every turn of the page. I can't reccommend it highly enough.
Rating:
Summary: How come I can only assign 5 stars when I need at least 25!!
Review: I bought the book in the year it was published. Since then, I've been reading the book at least once a year and never stopped enjoying it. To fully enjoy the book I also purchased it in the English language, though the translation in Dutch is absolutely perfect. I guess that ten years from now, this will still be my favorite one, both in English and Dutch.
Rating:
Summary: Highly original
Review: I have read most of Mr. Vance's work over the past 15 years and I rate this at the very top, along with the Lyonesse series. Highly original as always, he creates an entirely believable world. The characters are brilliant and the suspense nail-biting. Good read.
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